Viva Zapata!

Even assuming director Elia Kazan’s 1952 film biography of the Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata only has a passing accuracy to the man’s real story, it’s still a very unusual picture for its day and still incredibly compelling. However, Viva Zapata! is most noted as the third film from the young actor Marlon Brando and it’s more evidence of his acting genius. In the title role, it’s the followup to his groundbreaking, earth-shattering, art-changing performance in A Streetcar Named Desire, and whereas his Stanley Kowalski was a lot of exciting scenery chewing, Zapata is intense minimalism (and of course Kazan was the director of both). If you can get past the “ethnic” makeup and the accent that skews close to Vito Corleone with a hint of Cheech & Chong (and if you can’t get past it, I understand), it reveals a twenty-eight-year-old actor with the chops of a seasoned professional. Whereas so many actors before him would have let themselves fall into caricature, Brando brings a complicated self-torture and his esteemed methody-ness, which elevates the film to essential viewing for any fan of great acting.

Kinda-sorta based on Edgcomb Pinchon's book Zapata the Unconquerable, with a screenplay by one of America’s greatest novelists, John Steinbeck, Viva Zapata! is a straight biopic. Though the young Zapata originally had his eyes on a normal working-class life, when he stands up to the longtime Mexican dictator Porfirio Díaz in defense of poor farmers he is slowly pulled into the life of a revolutionary. Aided by his more colorful and reactionary brother, Eufemio (Anthony Quinn, terrific in an Oscar-winning performance and thankfully half Mexican in real life), while also trying to woo a merchant's daughter, Josefa (Jean Peters, best remembered as the sexy femme fatale of Pickup on South Street as well as briefly being the second wife of Howard Hughes -- and like Brando completely not Mexican), the brothers fight for the well-meaning and academic Francisco Madero (Harold Gordon). After overthrowing Díaz and a military assassination of Madero, Zapata endures a number of unethical generals who fear the respect he has earned from the people, even with a true Marxist advisor, Fernando Aguirre (Joseph Wiseman, most famous for playing Dr. No in the first James Bond flick) always lurking around. Eventually his fellow soldier, Pancho Villa (Alan Reed, the voice of Fred Flintstone!), names Zapata president but he ends up choosing the people over the power.

The Trouble With Harry

If it’s not Alfred Hitchcock’s most underrated film, than The Trouble With Harry is certainly his most unusual opus. In 1955, Hitch was in the midst of his unprecedented commercial and artistic hot streak; from '51 to '63 - Strangers on a Train through The Birds - he directed twelve films, a run that also included unquestionable masterpieces Rear Window, Vertigo, North By Northwest, and Psycho (as well as a couple misfires, most disappointingly I confess). Somewhere in the middle is this odd little black comedy about murder, shot in lush autumn Technicolor by the great Robert Burks. It feels like both an Ealing comedy (the little English studio that made stars of Alec Guinness and Peter Sellers) and a precursor to the lighter fare of the French New Wave. It’s both romantic and filled with a sort of light suspense. Though very much American, the film is based on a British novel by Jack Trevor Story and that quirky '50s English humor is evident (think of The Lady Killers). It’s not a style you see very much on this side of the Atlantic in that decade.

Besides the lush photography, The Trouble With Harry has two very special tricks up its sleeve:

Get Out

While Saturday Night Live has been a talent generator for the last forty-something years, as a sketch show it usually sticks with the obvious and the more tried and true formulas. On the fringes of television (usually cable) is where one finds the sketch shows that truly innovate and surprise: Mr. Show, Kids in the Hall, Chappelle’s Show, and The Ben Stiller Show, to name a few. But for my money, Comedy Central’s Key & Peele is the best sketch show since the era of SNL. Besides the outstanding and committed performances the two actors Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele give, the skits always seem to go down the least obvious route. Interestingly, the biggest influences on the show don’t seem to be the golden age of television’s Your Show of Shows or England’s Monty Python, but instead The Twilight Zone.

There’s an eerie element to the humor of Key & Peele and often an M. Night Shyamalan-like twist at the end of each bit. So it’s not surprising that for Peele’s directing debut (which he also wrote), he would make a proto-horror flick. Get Out is definitely less Lorne Michaels and more Rod Serling -- and even more Ira Levin (Rosemary’s Baby, The Stepford Wives, Deathtrap) with a sprinkling of Blaxploitation’s most outrageously paranoid thrillers (Ganja & Hess, Da Sweet Blood of Jesus and especially J.D.’s Revenge).

The Big Sick

Almost all of the better Judd Apatow joints (Cable Guy, Knocked Up, Superbad, Trainwreck, etc) have two big flaws in common: after some uproarious comedy, they end up going for the heart, therefore selling out the earlier, better raunch. They are also often ten minutes too long. In other words, Apatow’s world usually has third-act issues. The Big Sick, written by married team Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani, and directed by Michael Showalter - Apatow is one of eight listed producers - finally breaks this third-act curse and ends beautifully. It may become the first Apatow flick to garner a bunch of well-deserved Oscar nominations. In an era of funny but sloppy and rushed comedies, this is a perfect movie. It achieves the status of being “more than just a comedy,” like Annie Hall, for example, which is something that Apatow has been reaching for in recent years.

Co-writer Nanjiani stars as a struggling Chicago comedian who shares his first name, Kumail, and yes (SPOILERS), this is apparently a pretty-much, kinda-sorta, true story about how he and his wife Emily met and fell in love. Emily is played by Zoe Kazan, always an interesting actress, and her performance is so lived-in and real, it’s easy to overlook the casual brilliance of it. The conflict is that Kumail is a Pakistan-born American, and while his charming family humors his stand-up comedy dreams, they are insistent that he eventually marry a Pakistani woman. So when he meets and falls for Emily, he has to keep it a secret from them, and later, under the pressure of being disowned, he breaks up with her. But when an infection causes her to be forced into a controlled coma, he becomes attached to her hospital bedside, along with her complicated parents, the high-strung Southerner Beth (acting hall-of-famer, Holly Hunter) and the more laid-back and passive Terry (Ray Romano, in a new career-defining role).

De Palma

American director Brian De Palma has a long and often controversial filmography. He started out doing counterculture social satires but found his true calling as cinema’s foremost Hitchcock imitator and made a name for himself with his generous use of fake blood and topless women in danger. In the beginning he was often associated with his pals the movie brats (Spielberg, Lucas, Coppola, Scorsese, etc.) who stormed the gates of Hollywood and took advantage of the brief period in the '70s between the era of the studio system and corporate conglomeration, when directors ruled with more personal projects. While many of his peers dominated the awards and critics' lists, De Palma was more of a B-movie director who well into the blockbuster '80s had a hit-and-miss record, which in retrospect, is at least always interesting. Directors Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow create the perfect tribute with their endlessly fascinating documentary De Palma: no talking heads, just the always-bearded director discussing each film, year-by-year with plenty of clips to accompany him.

De Palma began his career in academia and on the fringes, a true independent director, doing unfunny comedies. His peak of unfunniness came with his first studio picture, the horrible Tommy Smothers vehicle Get to Know Your Rabbit. It bombed and De Palma reinvented himself with the bizarre cult musical Phantom of the Paradise and the very Hitchcockian thriller Sisters (which still stands up today, for me, as maybe his best film). Its mild acclaim and success got him a chance to direct the high profile adaptation of Stephen King’s Carrie. The film was a smash and De Palma became a brand name. He has had some hits: Dressed to Kill, Scarface (which mostly found its audience later via cable and videotape), The Untouchables and Mission Impossible (more a Tom Cruise production than a De Palma joint). He made a pretty good movie, Carlito’s Way (mostly memorable because of Sean Penn’s brilliant performance as Al Pacino’s coked-out lawyer), but most of his other films have ranged from forgettable to not very good.

Ingrid Bergman: In Her Own Words

With The Criterion Collection’s release of the wonderful box set 3 Films by Roberto Rossellini Starring Ingrid Bergman (Stromboli, Europe ’51 and Journey To Italy), a little seen documentary that would have made a perfect supplement instead has been given its own stand-alone release -- because it’s that good. Director Stig Bjorkman’s 2015 Swedish doc Ingrid Bergman: In Her Own Words actually proves to be just as compelling and well made as anything in the more celebrated box set. This is as good a documentary about a monumental film actress as has ever been produced, thanks to a treasure trove of correspondence, home movies, and, of course, footage from her own films and news reels (since she was the original international paparazzi prey). Ingrid Bergman was a complete original. Besides having a hall-of-fame film career she also lived one of the most interesting offscreen lives that often played out like a Douglas Sirk melodrama.

Ingrid grew up in a family of people who died young, which gave her extra drive. While still a teenager, she become a popular film actress in her homeland of Sweden. She was brought to America by big-time movie producer David O. Selznick to star in a remake of her own film, Intermezzo. In ’39, the film ended up being a big hit and -- bang! -- she was a star. An astonishing run of films would make her the most important film actress of the 1940s. She would get four Oscar nominations in the decade for The Bells of St Mary’s, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Joan of Arc and Gaslight, for which she won the award. She was in the popular Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde as well as in Hitchcock films Spellbound andNotorious (his greatest movie, so says I). Most famously, she would play Ilsa in quite possibly the most beloved film of the decade, Casablanca. All this before the age of thirty-three!

Tilt

Tilt is a quirky, surprisingly endearing movie about growing up. The examples being made show the fumbling of a young man keen on trying to con his way into obtaining respect and a fourteen-year-old girl who doesn’t know what respect is. This morality tale is somehow sweetly wrapped up in the act of pinball hustling. That’s right, pinball.

There are few films that handle the cult fascination with pinball parlors or even arcades for that matter. Joysticks and The Wizard come to mind almost instantly. Surely the 2007 documentary The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters shows that the craze is still very much alive. Those old enough to be adolescents or young adults during the '70s and '80s can even likely attest to there being a lack of nerd-association with the sport.

Interiors

When we think of Woody Allen’s evolutionary assault on film history, we think of his amazing one-two-punch of Annie Hall in ’77 and Manhattan in ’79 (and some may add Stardust Memories to the streak in ’80). But usually forgotten (and some would say for good reason) is the little film in between them in ’78 called Interiors. After years of slapstick, the comic/director’s Annie Hall surprised audiences with a more mature and almost serious direction (and won lots of awards for it). But with Interiors, Allen turned the seriousness up to an eleven.

This was his bold attempt at a Bergmanesque (a term invented because of this movie) cold, depressing family drama; there’s not a joke in sight, not even a smile. It couldn’t be more bleakly Scandinavian, as heartbreak, envy, divorce, adultery, rape, icy silence and of course, suicide by drowning take their turn on the screen. Allen puts together an interesting cast of actors at their most introspective. Leading the way is his then-muse, Diane Keaton, along with Geraldine Page, Mary Beth Hurt, Sam Waterson, E.G. Marshall, Maureen Stapleton as well as impressive newcomer Kristen Griffith and, in a stroke of inspired casting, the great B-Actor Richard Jordan. At the time, not only was this a new direction for Allen, it was unlike anything any major American directors were doing.

The Muppet Movie

Most television shows that make the jump directly to the big screen seem to also carry an inside-jokeyness about them -- at least, the best have (South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut, Strange Brew and the '60s pop art Batman). In so many ways, they announce to the audience that what you are now seeing is a film, not a TV show (though Batman is the closest to an actual long episode of the show). The Muppet Movie from 1979, in terms of postmodern meta-ness, is as self-referentially meta as a film can get. Like Strange Brew, it begins with a screening of the movie you are about to see. (Strange Brew’s is actually a homemade version before the actual film begins). As the world-famous Muppets sit in a packed screening room, eager to watch their own autobiographical movie, self-serious Sam the Eagle delivers one of the film's best deadpan lines when he asks Kermit, “Does this film have socially redeeming value?” And strangely we later find out, it does. What a perfect gem it proves to be because, like the syndicated TV series from which it sprang, The Muppet Show, the film version works perfectly as a good time for kids and for adults as a first-class musical.

Instead of the less cinematic story of how an inventive puppeteer named Jim Henson got together with a group of educators at the germinal government-sponsored PBS and created Sesame Street (which later begot The Muppet Show), this movie takes more inventive creative license to tell the Muppets' origin story. One day, while playing banjo in a swamp, Kermit The Frog was spotted by a Hollywood type (Dom DeLuise) who tells him about an opening in the picture business. So Kermit sets out for Los Angeles. On the way, he is joined by a Bob Hope wannabe bear named Fozzie and it becomes a road picture. Their crew keeps getting bigger as they are joined by a creature called Gonzo and his chicken girlfriend as well as the rock band Dr. Teeth & The Electric Mayhem. The film really jumps up a notch when they meet Miss Piggy. She and Kermit have electric chemistry but her ambition throws some curves into their fledgling relationship. She is the most interesting Muppet because while most of her peers are kind-hearted and giving, she is completely selfish and self-absorbed (and obviously based on Barbra Streisand). Meanwhile, Kermit is pursued by a Colonel Sanders-type fast food entrepreneur named Doc Hopper (the great Charles Durning) who will stop at nothing to get Kermit to be the spokes-frog for his new chain of frog-leg restaurants.

Demons

What makes a film quintessential? I’ve tried to organize the factors and often come up short. However, I do know that the films of John Hughes are considered quintessential '80s classics and the majority of films starring Sylvester Stallone are considered the same for the action genre. So what about horror? More specifically, that nugget-filled core called '80s Horror? Well, I’ve seen and mentally processed a vast range of horror -- from J-Horror to Giallo -- and can honestly say that I’ve yet to see a more perfect example of the genre from that period than Demons.

Director Lamberto Bava is the son of Mario Bava, world-famous for his films and cinematography -- most of which are Giallo horror. (In fact, the Bavas are a big family of cinematic greats.) Demons was also produced by the legendary Dario Argento. It’s no surprise, then, that the beginning of the film starts out very much like a Giallo; a fresh-faced young lady, Cheryl (Natasha Hovey), is on the subway and finds herself isolated, with the ominous sensation of being followed. There’s a pursuit (with that splendid synthy Itallo-rock in the background) which ends up providing her with a literal ticket to a righteous nightmare at a local theater.